The Avatar's Love
by National Wolves
Summary: The gang are all in different stages of adulthood, trying to stabilize peace for themselves and the four kingdoms when two girls interrupt Toph's self-imposed isolation claiming their deep love for each other despite societal prejudices. They set off an adventure that challenges Toph's disillusionment and forces everyone to redefine love for themselves and the world Zukaang Kataang
1. Prologue

Prologue

Our lost friend, the moon, peeled the insides of the small stone house into halves of dusty silver light and indeterminable shadow, with forgotten toys and drying earthenware in a rack hinting at the lives of the inhabitants asleep all in the same bed- a frame made of stone covered with a soft downy mat and blanketed with a plush indigo-dyed comforter. When a sudden tear occurs in this sort of silence and peace, one does not wake with the soft snowy haze of half-remembered conversations or a midnight piss. When a night like this is broken in a house like this very one, all of your past lives rouse in you simultaneously, your eyes burst open like yolks from an chicken pig eggshell, and all your worst fears combine into an impossible monster.

In any other house, that would be the story of the night: disruption, fear, possibly overreaction, more fear, and then someone might have ended the tale with a serious injury. But the two young women who gouged the quiet with their knocking on the door had arrived at the Beifong house deep in the towering pillars of the Wulong Forest, and their approach, their heaving of three small bags, and the lifting of the larger women's arm had already reverberated through the earth and woken a perturbed Toph before the loudest rupture of the knocking door stirred the lovely night. Her two young daughters only turned in bed at the sound, too young and trusting of their mother for concern.

"What do you want?" Toph grumbled as the door slid down with the gesture of her pressed-down and crooked hand revealing her glowering face and her slumped, tired, but still intimidating stance.

They both stared, catching the flies that surrounded Toph's stink in their open mouths.

Toph growled, "Well if you thought you could come to someone's house in the middle of the night without even a prepared monologue to grovel with, I think I won't be pulling my coin sack out to buy whatever it is you're selling. Instead, I'll just head back to bed." With a raising of her gnarly hand, the thick granite door began to resurrect from the ground.

"Toph!" shouted the smaller of the two finally coming out of shock to continue in the trend of desecrating the silence that Toph valued so much. "We're here because we're in love!"

I don't know if anything else might have stopped Toph from closing that door for good. Actually, I'm surprised that declaration did any good (with Toph's tempestuous relationship to the subject). Still, the three of them stood there, the stone block frozen, leaving only a window of that uncertain darkness and Toph's face, metallic and unreadable in that bright moon, uniting the light and the dark in equal displays of obscurity.


	2. Chapter 1

"You can rest here," Toph said, twisting to the side, pressing her foot more intently to the ground, and jerking her fist toward the ceiling. A hunk of the floor shot upward like a miniature mesa. "I don't know what you're used to, but there's a small stream on the back side of the house where we wash up when we feel like it."

The smaller of the couple-one might even call her petite depending on whether you consider it a compliment or an insult-spoke up without thinking, "Would you happen to have a rest mat or pillows to make things more comfortable."

"YOU COME INTO MY MIDDLE OF NOWHERE HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT ALMOST WAKING UP MY KIDS AND EXPECT ALL THE LUXURIES OF THE INNER RING OF BA SING SE!"

"We're sorry!" The larger girl, with her husky voice, apologized for the both of them, while the other provided no tangible signs of regret according to Toph's feet. "We've just been traveling for so long, I think that Qiao has forgotten her manners with her fatigue. Really, we're so happy for your hospitality and kindness, Miss Beifong."

"You're damn right." Toph sat down on a simple sturdy granite chair beside a simple sturdy granite table. "So you think you're in love?"

"We know we're in love," hurled Qiao in response. She marched in front of Toph, giving off an angry heat that Toph recognized instantly as a fire nation trait, although not quite the blaze of a firebender. "You don't abandon your family because of some puppy-dog affection."

A satirical huff leapt out of Toph's mouth. "I abandoned my family for less!" She leaned back in her chair, growing more confident with her task. "You've made it pretty obvious you don't know the first thing about love, spitfire."

If Toph could've seen, she probably would've been mesmerized-not deterred mind you, but definitely mesmerized-by the determination in Qiao's hazel eyes as I have found myself on several occasions now. Toph could, however, sense the tension in Qiao's body, the clenching of teeth and fists and mind as she asserted, "I might not have the words for my love, but it's there. I swear it."

"Kid, you shouldn't swear on things you can't put your finger on or all your promises will taste of fantasy."

"That's better than tasting of bitterness," grunted Qiao, "Tell her, Moja! Tell her how in love we are."

Anxiously unpacking their few supplies on the makeshift bed to ensure their tenancy that night by making it more work to kick them out, Moja looked up at the two bickering women. She, Toph would learn, rarely inserted herself into arguments by choice and often tried to find a middle path to ease the warring factions. But on this occasion she was clear, even if she only spoke because of her partner's invitation. "Miss Beifong, I understand your doubt. I have the same doubt sometimes, but this-what I feel when I'm with Qiao or when I'm helping her or we're working together-the only word that I can come up with is love."

"Maybe you just need a bigger vocabulary then!" Toph laughed at her own joke. "You're as confused as your friend here, albeit in a completely different deranged direction." She felt the two move together and sit on the bed to hold each other tenderly, one of them letting out a sigh of disappointment. "What were you expecting me to do about it anyway?"

"You know the Avatar." Moja had spoken, which must've meant Qiao had sighed, perhaps a sign of defeat at the indifference Toph displayed. "We don't know what else to do. We don't have homes or families anymore. My village shunned me-everyone of them-when I told them how I felt about Qiao. Not only did they despise her for being fire nation, they said two women together would bring about horrors upon horrors and shame upon shame. The moon spirits depend on the alternating relationships of two opposites, they said. Without an opposite, the other can't be. They compared it to when the moon was lost!" Moja's voice had risen to a roar, cracking out like breaking sheets of ice. "And Qiao's household would not hear of it at all! When we told them, they ignored us entirely. Then, they're guards would not allow me back onto the grounds. "If the Avatar's duty is to bring peace to the world," she continued gripping on tighter to Qiao's thigh, "where's our piece of it?"

Toph had returned back to her more stoic posturing, revealing less ridicule, but little else. With her head down she answered, "You think the Avatar's duty is to bring peace to every individual who's having family squabbles? He thought that once upon a time too, you know. You think he could keep that up? He's only half-spirit, you know. The other half is human. He gets tired."

"This isn't just a family squabble," Qiao interrupted in between sobs that had started half way through Toph's response.

"What is it then?" The master earthbender asked.

"It's love." Moja this time, speaking for them both, "If we're wrong-but I don't think we are-then I think everyone else must be wrong about it, too. And the Avatar has a duty to figure out for this loveless world what it really is."

"Yeah, whatever. I'm going to bed. I'm sure the girls will wake you up bright and early. Make sure to pack up quickly around that time."

"What?" asked Qiao still in tears.

Toph had already started back toward a simple rectangular hole in the wall behind which was, what Qiao and Moja assumed, her bedroom "We have to start early if we're gonna try to see the Avatar. My best guess is that twinkle toes will be at the Fire Nation Palace planning something ridiculous and bureaucratic with that good ol' hotman of his."

With that, Qiao's sobbing got louder.

"And shut up, or take a few steps away from the house with all that blubbering! You'll wake up my girls!"


	3. Chapter 2

With a towel in her hand from her desperate unpacking, a quick survey of the room alerted Moja to the disenchantment that overcame her now. The scene was simultaneously rigid and unkempt with sharp stone lines making up the walls, furniture, and objects in the house and a thin layer of dust crusting everything including an unexpected proportion of toys and tools discarded on the floor and counters.

She would've fallen into a solemn muteness if Qiao at that very moment was not hanging in the windowsill like a linen sheet folded over a laundry line. The surprise in a more familiar environment might have led Moja to playfully explore the vulnerability of Qiao's raised rump in the slit of luminescence that could still squeeze through the opening, but in the home of the master they had sought for days, in the home of the Avatar's close friend, in the home of any person willing to offer them help, in someone else's home no matter the circumstances! Moja could not restrain herself from flying in to clean up the mess she saw her partner beginning to make.

"Qiao-qiao, pup, what are you doing!? Come back in here this instant" Moja commanded, revealing the sternness of her father, a sea captain in the Northern Water Tribe's navy.

"You want me to go to bed with all this filth on me?" Qiao kicked her legs and shook her rear end, releasing a cloud of three-days-without-bathing-beds-or-changing-clothes, which, coincidentally, looked rather complementary to Toph's decorating style.

"No," grunted Moja while pulling on Qiao's knee-high leather boot to reel her back in. "We can just use the do-"A crumpled pile of Qiao minus one boot flopped onto the prairie grass outside the window. Meanwhile, Moja with more moonlight and converted attention realized Toph had left the door raised, leaving them no other option.

"I'm suspecting by your reverent silence that you've realized my wisdom and wish to follow me as a disciple!" called a recomposing Qiao into the shadowy square window.

Moja's visage broke into the night's light in the window like the apparition of the blue spirit darting out from the spirit world. "Shush!" But even in her agitation, Moja's face still held onto it's earthy beauty. Like many in the Western village of the Northern Water Tribe, she had skin darker than a sunflower center and a wide full nose that called for quick kisses. As she heaved herself up her hair loops jangled tautly against her soft tubby skin. She kept all her hair in tight rows against her head looping them back up with small ivory beads to appear to flow into another aisle of her hair so that they formed intersecting arcs, each one tied through its neighbor. Since they began their journey, these wound rows had begun to frizz without their typical upkeep, and falling onto the ground only added to their loosening.

As Moja stood up, loading her partner's small shadow onto her her body, with her head still left in the moon's pool of radiance, Qiao continued to appreciate the soft but concerned features of the girl she believed she loved. Her furrowed eyebrows were rich, thick and black, hinting at a desire to wed each other above her nose bridge, although two sterling rings grabbed side by side above her right eye disrupting the brows' attempt to reign over her whole face. In her eyes she held polished obsidian, which now scanned and assessed to uncover the river in the same manner they shifted to consider anyone's discontent-a symptom of Moja's anxiety that Qiao adored.

Moja pointed to the river and whispered, "We'll go wash off quickly and head straight to bed so we'll be energized for tomorrow's travelling." Qiao watched her speak, her burgundy lips hanging plump like two heavy wineskins. They walked down to the river hand in hand, Moja breathing freely for the first time in a few weeks and blushing at Qiao's familiar gaze. When Qiao felt Moja offer as they arrived at the streambank, she drank of Moja's wine entirely.

Pushing onto tiptoe, Qiao closed her eyes and dipped into Moja's lips, beginning as anyone who imbibes with a sip followed by a deep and satisfying swill. She reached her warm arms to lasso Moja down to earth with her, first to her own height, and then knee by knee to kneeling.

"Wait, wait," laughed Moja, "Let me hang the towel on the tree so it won't get dirty." She stood and placed it symmetrically over a low branch of the lychee nut tree leaning over the creek where it caught the the giggling reflections of the moonlight on the underside of its leaves. This same wild glow caught on Moja's face as she returned to kiss Qiao laying in the grass beginning at her pouting lips and circumnavigating her ticklish neck.

Sometimes, Qiao could hardly believe her partner could let go of the all the thoughts on her mind long enough to let her libido take over. She imagined the water tribe girl went about their sexual exchanges as a project instead of instinct, using her lips as a compass to chart pleasure on another person's body. As Moja submerged toward her neck, Qiao let out moans and blossoms of laughter in equal measure, pressing and pulling the perpetrator of these overwhelming sensations unsure when the steady stream of joy would overrun its banks.

Finally, Qiao asserted her desire to treat Moja to a similar discourse. Pushing on the large captain's daughter until she was sitting upright against the trunk of the lychee nut tree, Qiao whispered something she'd never repeat, at least to me, in Moja's ear. The dashing air of her articulation sent a cascading chill through her body, and Moja asked for more. Qiao placed her mouth through the arc of one black twisted loop to paint that lovely brown ear with her breath, her lips, and her tongue, sending her canvas into low lovely hums of satisfaction. Then, she grabbed Moja's opposite breast through her loose linen vest and the tight bind she wore for their long travels. With sensitivity, she massaged it how a waterbender healer tenderly attended to a fractured bone. "Let me unwrap," Moja interrupted.

As Moja tugged off her vest and unwound, Qiao peered into her excited eyes as she began nibbling on her fingernails, carving them into small white parentheses in which she could insert her own heart without interrupting Moja's story. Although Moja had no doubt about how much she would enjoy her partners punctuations, she, always anticipating, began to weigh tomorrow's exhaustion with the night's climax. "I think we better just wash off," she offered.

"Wait. Sorry. What happened? What's up?"

"No, no, nothing. We just have so much we have to do tomorrow, and I'm worried we'll be tired."

"So you don't want…" Qiao trailed off leaving the rest of the idea open to interpretation.

"It's not that I don't want it," Moja explained, "I just want everything to go well with Toph, and we're already off to a bad start. We only have this one chance. You're so important to me. I want to make sure nothing can come between us, and I want it so others can have this. Plus, what if Toph can hear us from here?"

Caught up in the moment as usual, Qiao had not thought through much of this. "Okay, we can just wash up and head to bed, but, if you ask me, I think Toph secretly likes us! I know she seems kind of crotchety and cynical, but that just means she has a big heart to protect. Just trust me."

Moja did not trust Qiao's idealism, but she let it go, walking into the stream and picturing the current picking her up, pulling her out into the ocean and back home.


	4. Chapter 3

Dear Avatar Aang,

Although I presume you are busy attending to your wife, the restoration of the Southern Air Temple with your acolytes, as well as the various disturbances continuing to occur in the former colonies-Actually the latter is why I'm writing to you (despite ashamedly not maintaining adequate contact with you since your wedding)-I write to you for your assistance.

The Fire Nation recognizes and seeks forgiveness for its role in oppressing and disrupting the lives of people throughout the world. Therefore, I and the Fire Nation council have unanimously composed a declaration urging the parliament to draft a resolution for providing aid to affected areas. However, several parliamentary members have confided in me their trepidation in crafting such substantial legislation, feeling conflicted about how the aid should be distributed and controlled while also worrying how the funding of such will affect the Fire Nation people.

While I have developed some of my own economic theories in regard to the application of aid, since the passing of my uncle and my mother, I have few whose wisdom I regard with as much respect as The Avatar's. Seeing as this impacts a large portion of the world and aims to restabilize the balance of the four nations' relationships to one another, I felt that perhaps this fell into the purview of The Avatar and would not be received as an interruption from your valuable work.

Best Regards,

Zuko

 ****

 **Dear Sifu Hotman,**

It's so nice to hear from you! I always loved how seriously you approached life, but just remember you're welcome to write freely to me. How are the spirits treating you these days? Have you kept up the meditations we practiced so many years ago? Is there anyone new in your life? Although the woman you brought to the wedding was not who I imagined you with (now that I think about it, I have no idea who I imagine you with!), I was hopeful that your separation was peaceful and provided a sense of spiritual growth rather than pain. I remember starting to write a letter when that occurred. I wonder what I wrote and why I never finished it? Never mind! To dwell on the things we forget will hold us as tightly to the past as dwelling on the things we remember.

I'm excited The Fire Nation spends so much work attempting to restore balance to the world so I can sit back and relax. If only that were true! But honestly, your work is so appreciated by me and surely by the people of your Nation and the global community. I'd certainly love to offer my input on your plans. I have to admit, some of the political jargon flies over my head like Appa on a cloudless day, but I promise to bring what intelligence and compassion I can to the matter. I believe it's my duty as the avatar.

Moreso, Zuko, I think it's my duty as your friend. Hearing from you has always ignited (get it? Sokka would be proud of this one!) my spirit, reminding me how every individual has infinite stories within them. Noticing this about a person is like looking at the evening sky at the temple and knowing that you can't count the stars before morning arrives. Sorry! I've trailed off in my own thoughts. Flighty as always! I look forward to hearing more about your plans and your life, friend. Please write back sooner rather than later.

With warmth (get it?),

Your dear friend, Aang


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

She wished that the yellow sunlight, its warmth and dancing brightness, had awoken her or perhaps the discomfort from the cool rigid slab of stone on which she slept through the night could have opened her eyes to the morning, but Moja stirred to child laughter mixed with what she believed was the collapsing of the house-the thunder of crushing rocks, the shaking earth, and rubble and dust landing on her face as a heavy snow. Instinctively, she grabbed for Qiao only trapping air where she expected her partner to be. Then, she ripped herself from the ignorance of sleep and beyond the haze of initial waking to full alertness so she could locate Qiao and escape the inevitable collapse.

Instead, she looked from her hard bed onto the source: two young girls, neither possibly older than ten, dislocating rocks from the floor, walls, ceiling, and furniture with quick fluid earthbending movements and hurling them across the room at each other. Moja dodged just in time to avoid a concussion from a fist-sized hunk kicked from the younger of the two. Ignoring her, they continued sparring. The older girl, more steely in demeanor with eyes like sharpened razors, having just slid out of the path of the same kick that Moja had dodged, punched a chunk out of the wall, spun herself around like a shuriken, and punted the levitating earth at her sister. She missed by mere centimeters, but that proved close enough for the spritely target to grab hold of it's trajectory as a waterbender might, returning it to its maker at an increased velocity. Taken off guard, the older girl was slammed in the stomach and thrown backward to the entrance wall, finally bowing to her knees breathless.

"Time to quit fooling around," called Toph as she emerged from the bedroom with three stuffed bags. Yes, definitely the bedroom. Moja could see into it now with morning streaming on everything: a large bed with a cerulean quilt, a doorless wardrobe with no clothes left behind, and Qiao, plucky and glowing with excitement, following closely behind. As Qiao's booted foot crossed the threshold of the doorway, Toph lunged forward so that the room and all its parts plunged into the earth. "You're blanket!" cried Moja whose voice was still creaky with disuse from her silent sleep.

"For someone who claims to have been travelling for weeks to get here, you sure don't know much about traveling," Toph chided. "Only keep what you can carry. No need to grieve things you can't keep."

After landing her surprised leap from the descending room, Qiao quickly added, "That's what I always tell Moja!" She smiled brightly with affirmation revealing her endearingly crooked teeth. "See, Mo', we don't need to pack everything 'just in case.'" To emphasize her point, she provided the most exaggerated air quotes around the final phrase that the waterbender had ever witnessed. The two girls had moved to flank Qiao, backing her up with rasberried tongues and waving hand antlers. "We can just take what we need and figure it out along the way," she finished.

Moja still sat on the bed in the middle of the common space, annoyed at her partner's snideness and feeling outnumbered by the army of Beifongs with which Qiao had aligned herself, but she began to pack quickly fearing the master earthbender might soon pull down the room with her still in it if she moved too slowly. The leader of this small army, Toph, especially intimidated her after their tense encounter the night before. In the day, she looked even more gruff, more sturdy, more dirty and grimy. Where it did not hide her wandering foggy eyes, her black hair hung down to her shoulders burdened with grease with beginnings of gray like a cobweb crown. She was dressed simply in a pale yellow tunic and a ruddy emerald jumper, but even that suggested her directness instead of any sort of inviting humility. And, of course, she was barefoot, as Moja had heard many times as a child in the village's retellings of the Avatar's return.

Based on the stories, Toph sensed every object in the room, their movement, and even their heartbeats to detect their honesty. This caused the anxious Moja the most worry. Her view of everything had long ago filled with doubt. Within her, all the trust that made room for hope and vulnerability in others had frozen into solid icy wariness, leaving room for nothing else. If Toph could sense this, Moja worried, she might abandon her and Qiao, might leave them to their own devices. But, Moja told herself that she must have more love for Qiao than other couples had for each other. Some men beat their wives, some couples try to manipulate each other, they lie, they cheat on each other. More than even Toph could know, perhaps. Where was the father of Toph's daughters, anyway? Yes, Moja felt assured, she knew love more than someone else, which only left her with the question of whether that was enough.

Just as Moja finished packing the supplies with which they came, Toph called from the damaged but still usable kitchen table where everyone sat eating a light breakfast of rice porridge, "Come on, sleepyhead! Time to head out before another couple finds my hidden house and wants a favor." She invited her daughters to head out, which they promptly did by hopping down from their seats and barreling their fists into the ground in synchronization. Two slabs broke from the front wall and dove down revealing the morning tearing through the forest.

The sun slanted through the leaves and around the giant pillars of stone unique to Wulong. The birds chittered, leaves rattled with invisible animal doings like spirits, and as the group exited through the doors, their bodies added to the collection, too. The house, with the work of the three Beifong women, disappeared, not to be seen again.

Instead of continuing on the path that lay before them, however, Toph led the crew toward the stream. "Shin!" Toph rang out, "Shinren!" A large ostrich horse trotted out from the shadows of the trees, followed by several others. They surrounded the earthbending family as each of them laughed, petted down the roused black feathers, and placed their heads gently next to the animals' as they held onto their necks. "Hello, friend," Toph let out beneath the giggles. Toph's smile caught both Qiao and Moja off-guard, but eased some of their fears. The latter blushed as she wondered whether the ostrich horses might've witnessed some of their playfulness the night before, while Qiao just clenched onto Moja's hand and pranced in excitement.

"These are our ostrich horses!" announced the proud older sister to the pair.

Her posturing soon deflated when her sister countered, "No, Lin, they're not our ostrich horses. They just help us out when we travel. Right, mom?"

Toph pressed a single finger on her forehead between the inky middle-parted waves of hair. "Funny thing, isn't it?" she offered her older daughter, though the younger stayed tuned in, too, hoping to hear validation, "When do you give yourself over to someone, and when do you get to be your own?"

"I always thought the Avatar was supposed to be the wise one," Qiao whispered to Moja elbowing her in the ribs.

"I'M THE MIGHTIEST EARTHBENDER IN THE WORLD, SPITFIRE!" Toph sprang at Qiao, propelled by a the raised earth and picked the Fire Nation citizen up by the collar. "I TAUGHT THE AVATAR EARTHBENDING, I BROUGHT DOWN AN ENTIRE FLEET OF FIRE NATION SHIPS TO HELP END THE HUNDRED YEAR WAR, I WAS THE CHIEF OF REPUBLIC CITY'S POLICE, AND I SINGLE-HANDEDLY INVENTED METALBENDING! YOU DON'T THINK A WOMAN LIKE ME WOULD PACK A LITTLE WISDOM AWAY AFTER ALL THAT?" Qiao just stuttered. "Go on," Toph continued furiously, "disagree with me. Your life would be little more than a bug on my conscience. I've destroyed ships filled with armed soldiers. You'd be nothing."

"It just came out wrong, is all!" Qiao was wailing now. "What you said just hit me in a meaningful way. I thought for a second that you could be all the guidance we needed. I never thought about giving myself to others and vice versa. It's almost like you weren't just talking about ostrich horses, Miss Beifong? Chief Beifong? Sifu? I'm pretty confused now, and also really scared."

"You can just call me Toph, but remember that I have all the wisdom of a master and a lifetime! And the bending to take you and your pookie out before you even know you've done anything wrong."

"Yes, Toph," Qiao said, attempting to bow her head which proved difficult while still hanging from Toph's fist.

Meanwhile, Moja and the girls tried to gather and sooth the ostrich horses that had scattered with Toph's sudden eruption-all except Shinren who jumped back at the initial burst, but chewed on cud while the rest of her peers whizzed around.

"Wow! Mom never does that sort of thing to us," considered the younger daughter as she rode an ostrich horse into the clearing by the stream, leaning into its long feathery neck like a hug

Riding another back with the regalness of a guard, Lin shot back, "That's because she expects us to learn this kind of stuff on our own or suffer the consequences, Su Yin," while rolling her eyes.

Moja, on the other hand, could barely catch up to the ostrich horse she had followed, and when she did, the horse reared up and began to chase her as she comically screamed, her arms flailing in the air like rabaroo ears behind her. When she stretched her eyes around to measure the distance between her and her squawking adversary, she saw a ramp jut up behind her, raising the ostrich horse with it and guiding it to an unamused Toph.

"Stop fooling around. We have a long day ahead of us." Toph announced. Her unbending authority brought the chaos that her anger her ignited to its end. "We've have a hard day's travel ahead, and you dunderheads have held us up long enough." The young Beifongs snickered at their mother's beratement of the older girls. "Don't think you girls aren't included in the dunderhead category," redirected Toph. "When I was your age, I traveled the world without any parents or adults to save the world." The two daughters hung their heads a little lower as the herd regrouped and the group rode into the forest as the pillars of Wulong towered over them like fears.


End file.
